Exploration
by YouWILLbealright
Summary: They're a team now, Clint and Natasha. Natasha and Clint. Two peas in a non-commital-pod. {An exploration into Clintasha, for Mysterygal5}


**This is for Mysterygal5, who I have been friends with for nearly two years. I think I made my account to favorite a story of hers, actually.**

**Mysterygal5 ships Clintasha, while I ship Romanogers. Through this difference, she (I'm like 98% sure MysteryGAL5 is a female, just sayin') has read and reviewed a bunch of my stories. I have neglected to do so, and wanted to do something different, so here we are.**

**This is an exploration of Clintasha and I will try not to mess anything up or miss anything exciting that may have come up in this sub-fandom. I am not proud of this at all, but, um, yeah. I've never done this and it's hard ugh.**

**Once upon a time, I shipped Clintasha hardcore, but now they're more of a brotp. Basically, I don't usually read stories that focus on them and only them. (As a note, there's almost no dialogue this chapter.)**

**This is chapter AU, since I won't be taking everything that happened in IM3, T:TDW and CA:TWS into account. This is spanning from pre-avengers to post-avengers, and is under the impression that everyone lived in the tower following the Loki thing.**

**The last and final chapter, the second one, will take the other three movies into account, 'kay?**

**Anyhow, enjoy!**

* * *

X

"I owe him a debt."

"Tasha..."

X

They know everything about each other. Everything. They know the other like the back of their own shooting hand, though Clint has two (he's ambiguous) and Natasha's comfortable with both.

She owes him her life (and a debt) and without her, he'd be dead ten times over. (That is, of course, not mentioning Phil Coulson who took both of them in and saved their collective asses more times than anyone, even Tony Stark, could count - he's dead now, so it's not like it really matters, anyway.)

...X...

At first, they weren't really friends. Natasha didn't want to be there, didn't feel welcome, and Clint didn't know what to do, as Fury had benched him to training new recruits, all of whom were immensely scared of him. He wasn't the best at making friends. But then, the pair had bonded over a botched mission and who even cares if Clint should have killed her and now he's been degraded? Certainly _not_ them.

Still though, they weren't _exactly_ friends. What do they even have in common other than working as spies/snipers/mercenaries/agents/puppets for a government organization?

In between missions, they find out.

They both love rocky road ice cream, specifically _Ben & Jerry's_.

Dogs. Cats. Birds. They both love animals, so long as they aren't reptiles. Reptiles freak Clint out and make Natasha uneasy, which is a surprise, as nothing else in the world does.

They both hate mulling over stuff that is not in need of being mulled over.

Their mutual hate for pop music of any kind is somewhat overwhelming to other people.

They'd both _vo__te for Pedro_, if they could. And, yes, Natasha's seen that movie. _Gosh!_

If they didn't owe SHIELD their lives, they'd both haul ass and leave. Well, maybe. It would require some mulling and see above.

They're both orphans, but that is one subject that is not emphasized on.

Time in between missions fizzles from a week or two to an hour, at most. They become Strike Team Delta, embrace it, even.

It's been a while since Clint took a risk and they ended up in Fury's office, waiting for the inevitable ass chewing. It's been a while, and in that while, they've managed to come to a middle ground, where no questions are asked and everything is strictly business. It's been a while, and now they can work together without Natasha biting Clint's head off and without Clint getting too deep in chick-flick shit.

See? They're a team now, Clint and Natasha. Natasha and Clint. Two peas in a non-commital-pod. The eighteenth and twenty-first birthdays that grant liberation, but in this case, death.

Other than Coulson, Fury and maybe, possibly Hill, everyone fears them. They've been given a high place on the pyramid to reign from and hell if the pair are gonna skip their merry way down.

Clint and Natasha are prince and princess of SHIELD. By way of blood, at this point, though.

Their relationship doesn't get romantic - or even _emotional_ - until a terrible mission where they'd managed to fuck up several times. And, to make matters worse, they'd fucked up at the worse times, and now several hundred people - civilians - are dead. Because of them.

Clint had headed straight for his little bunk on the helicarrier, still somewhat new and sturdy. Coulson had had Clint get a movie to watch and left his subordinate with orders to wait for him. So, Clint had dragged his feet to his bunk, set up the movie, and sat on the bed. Coulson didn't take too long, and exactly thirty-seven minutes into _National Treasure _(which, ugh, by the way, Coulson's such a freak for picking that movie), both men are out of it. Coulson falls asleep and Clint's kinda half-way.

But, then, Natasha struts in, hair long and wavy, sits on Clint's lap and wakes him right the fuck up.

Neither acknowledge the way she's in Clint's _personal space_, which is extremely important to him. Neither acknowledge that she's not supposed to be here, but then, neither is Coulson, so it doesn't really matter.

The movie drones on and on. Finally, when the credits start to roll, Natasha kisses him right on the lips for a long moment, whispers "thank you" and leaves.

Clint doesn't see her for three whole days after that and he's left to think his brain into apple-sauce-like mush. He doesn't even know what she thanked him for. It is, needles to say, extremely frustrating. Still, he doesn't go looking because Natasha knows he's going to be looking and is probably not wanting to see him.

Coulson never finds out about the little encounter - no relationships between agents, not even one from two people in different sections and especially one from two people in the same section. Natasha knows that. But, then, does that mean the kiss was meaningless? Clint should-be been good with meaningless by then, but by God, he wasn't.

The next time he sees her - three days later, like is said above - she acts like it never happens. Clint's not about to be the one to bring it up, so it's not spoken about for years to come.

They go back to being nothing more than colleagues - Clint hates it. He doesn't know what Natasha's thinking, how she feels about the kiss that is infamous in his head, why she would do that and then give no explanation and expect him to go along with it. Clint tries, manages, and it drags on for a year. By then, it'd been a good two years since he rocked the boat and brought one of SHIELD's biggest threats to be an agent.

Then, Budapest happens. The details get lost on Clint practically as he's given them, he hasn't had a break in a long freaking time, cut him some slack, and all he remembers is that suddenly he and Natasha are best buds. He's also pretty sure he was drugged, but, you know, details.

(Later, he'll say that he and Natasha remember Budapest very differently, which is mostly true - it's because she had some breakthrough and realized she actually liked Clint and didn't just kind-of-trust him and decided to open up and he just knows that she's talking now. Most of what he remembers is a bunch of hand-to-hand and alcohol. Also, he supposedly missed a shot. Clint doesn't believe Natasha for a second when she laughs and tells him that.)

Anyway, she opens up, and he's got an actual friend. With emotions, and stuff, which is awesome. They pull each other out of several life-and-death situations, and yeah. Clint's not an idiot. It's been three years, and he knows he's falling for her. He's screwed.

So, he pulls away from her. In theory, it's a great idea and there are no qualms about it and everything eventually goes back to normal. In reality, Natasha's pissed and he's left wondering how she even managed to do it - for _years_, no less.

They get through it eventually - Clint keeps it professional while Natasha, at first, tried almost everything to get it to emotional or the like, and after that, let him be surly and closed off. They both spend a christmas together, in Mexico, and Clint gets her a necklace with a silver arrow as the pendant. It's been three and a half years.

Natasha is never seen without it from then on.

There are another two years of constant on/off missions, where they both get hurt and proceed to flip their shit if the other is hurt enough and where they slowly, so very slowly, open back up to each other.

After six years, they're best friends, sometimes with benefits, sometimes not, and inseparable. Even Fury knows to keep the two together, and would even if they weren't the most deadly agents he had once put together.

In the sixth year, Natasha leaves to assess Tony Stark, Ironman (who has always fascinated Clint, not that Tony Stark would ever figure that out), and Clint gets some time off. That is, until he's shipped off to New Mexico with Coulson, who _will not shut up_ about Captain _fucking_ America.

Clint texts Natasha that's he's going to melt from Coulson's constant litanies and she just sends a smiley face back.

And, then, _Thor_. Oh, my God, _Thor_. The man is huge and has skills that Clint has never seen before and he knocks a bunch of asshole SHIELD agents on their asses and Clint can't help but feel like he even outshines Captain fucking America and Tony Stark put together, for a moment.

Plus, _really_? Shoot at him? Maybe Clint's kind of biased and maybe he's becoming predictable, but what Clint wants to do is recruit the guy.

He tells Natasha and she calls him just to laugh at him. He pouts and she knows him so well, she scolds him about having his bottom lip out and they laugh and laugh well into the night. Rumlow, the asswipe, yells at Clint for a good three and a half minutes, before Clint flips him off and leaves.

They see each other for a little while, but then Natasha's in Russia and he's watching over the tesseract and Loki comes in like some white-horse-hero wanna be, talking about shit he can't make out.

Loki says he has heart. Loki takes over him, mind fuck's him, tells him what to do. Only, it's not him, more like his body and a small part of his mind that takes orders and follows them, no questions asked.

Clint, the one who is sitting in a cubicle and not running around, doing things on Loki's whim, wonders and worries. He worries about Natasha and Coulson, and, sadly, Maria Hill and Nick Fury and most everyone but Rumlow and Ward, because fuck them. Those are the two constantly making fun of him and Natasha - Clint wanted Natasha and himself to be together, but he was smart enough to know that Natasha would not do that. Not because it's him, either. Because of her past, the past that Clint knows little about, she won't get herself in the middle of a relationship.

Then, of course, he nearly _kills_ her with an explosive arrow that she had always liked. Not to mention the rest of the people he would hopefully end up working with one day. You know, hopefully. Because he just almost killed all of them. Kind of not trust worthy, now. It was sad. Really.

Clint could almost sense that Natasha was making friends, and there he was, blowing up the helicarrier and aiding the enemy.

He'd only managed to not kill everyone, and that's the only solace in this hell. He could've shot Nick Fury in the heart and in the head, and yet, he didn't. That said something about him, right?

During all of that, Natasha was desperately trying to focus on the job and not Clint.

She is constantly worrying about Clint because he's the closest thing she's got to, well, anything normal and he's gone/trying to kill her and everyone else on board the helicarrier.

She's still shaken from her encounter with the Hulk, but Natasha knows she has to find Clint and subdue him, because both Rumlow and Ward were running around, probably trigger happy. Basically, they will kill him, and Natasha really can't have "killed two colleagues" on her resume, not that she needs one, or even has one.

In their line of work, it's all _reputation_ and none _documented paperwork_. Well, maybe she could kill them, just for the fun of it... It would help her reputation, so, really, why not? Oh, yeah, that's right. Clint doesn't like unnecessary death, and she's found herself wrapped around his finger, not that he knows.

She's lucky to find him, some will later say, but it's not luck, it's years of knowing how he moves around the ship, which hallways he avoids like they're sins and he's an innocent church goer, and which shortcuts he takes frequently.

The fight's a blur of caught moves - they've known each other's moves since about a year after Clint saved her - and stand stills. But, Natasha finally renders him not-a-puppet and he seems confused.

"Tasha?" He asks, blinking. Natasha's panting, but she still kicks (**AN: I haven't seen the movie in a while, so that could be wrong**) him right in the head, figuring that cognitive recalibration is the golden ticket. (Clint forced her to watch those stupid ass _Chocolate Factory_ movies a long time ago.)

Turns out, it is. Somehow, Clint gets to a medical room - Natasha's so stressed, she isn't sure how, which is more terrifying than the Hulk and how Clint's going to react to killing fellow agents combined - and gets restrained, just in case. She stands - well, sits - vigil over Clint, watching him and waiting for him to wake.

Over her comm, she hears that Thor and Loki are both gone. Bruce is somewhere after jumping out and nearly killing an agent. Steve and Tony fixed the engine that Clint had blown up. She hears that Coulson is dead and she nearly dies herself, but Clint's going to be alone if she does, and he's going to suffer if that happens.

Clint wakes up after she's been stewing and chewing the idea that one of the only people in life that she trusts is now dead, and trust_ed_. She can tell he blames himself, so she nips it in the bud and kindly informs him that she will _rip out his spine and choke him with it if he continues to blame himself_.

Then, Steve comes in and Natasha is infinitely grateful that he trusts her - again, terrifying - word to accept Clint, even though she never actually says anything. Steve had done that with Bruce, too, accepting him immediately. He probably doesn't understand how much _that_, his acceptance, will help Clint.

Giant aliens have already started to reek havoc on the people of New York when Clint lands the quinjet. It's a long, hard battle, with high emotions and tensions, but they all somehow manage to get through it victorious. Then, shwarma happens, which isn't all that bad, but Clint mostly keeps to himself and picks at his food and steals her chair with his foot, like an asshole.

He follows Natasha to her apartment that is away from SHIELD enough to be rehabilitating. Clint stays several days - sometimes dressed, sometimes not. Plus, in those few days, they come to an understanding. They're unofficially together, but they've always flourished in the gray areas, so what's it matter?

...X...

Natasha doesn't tell Clint about Coulson's passing until Clint tries to call him and get's a lady named Sarah instead of Coulson.

Clint locks himself in the bathroom for hours and hours.

...X...

They all see Thor and Loki bye and split up. However, after a nice week vacation before pointless missions and appointments with a therapist, Tony Stark invites them over to live with him - _it'll be easier to get all together this way_, he says. Natasha doesn't particularly _want_ to, but Clint is bouncing on the balls of his feet in happiness, so she goes along with it, for his sake.

Where one goes, the other follows, unfortunately.

It ends up not being terrible, watching Tony and Bruce both try to help Steve adjust and eating pancakes with Clint and Thor, who often puts pop-tarts in them and eats them like hard-shell tacos.

The movie _Brave_ comes out, they all, exculding Thor, duh, go to see it, and Clint jokes that, should they have children - it's not exactly the best idea, but whatever - they should name their daughter Merida. Natasha doesn't say anything, but he thinks, later, that her eyes look red.


End file.
